The Hacker News — Cyber Security, Hacking, Technology News

In last 20 years, we have seen hundreds of caper/heist movies where spies or bank robbers hijack surveillance cameras of secure premises to either stop recording or set up an endless loop for covert operations without leaving any evidence.

Whenever I see such scenes in a movie, I wonder and ask myself: Does this happen in real-life?

Yes, it does, trust me—at least CIA agents are doing this.

WikiLeaks has just unveiled another classified CIA project, dubbed 'Dumbo,' which details how CIA agents hijack and manipulate webcams and microphones in Hollywood style "to gain and exploit physical access to target computers in CIA field operations."

The Dumbo CIA project involves a USB thumb drive equipped with a Windows hacking tool that can identify installed webcams and microphones, either connected locally, wired or wirelessly via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Once identified, the Dumbo program allows the CIA agents to:

Mute all microphones

Disables all network adapters

Suspends any processes using a camera recording device

Selectively corrupted or delete recordings

However, there are two dependencies for a successful operation:

Dumbo program requires SYSTEM level privilege to run.

The USB drive must remain plugged into the system throughout the operation to maintain control over connected surveillance devices.

This project is being used by the CIA's Physical Access Group (PAG)—a special branch within the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI) which is tasked to gain and exploit physical access to target computers in CIA field operations.

Previous Vault 7 CIA Leaks

Last week, WikiLeaks published another CIA project, dubbed 'Imperial,' which revealed details of at least 3 CIA-developed hacking tools and implants designed to target computers running Apple Mac OS X and different flavours of Linux operating systems.

Since March, WikiLeaks has published 19 batches of "Vault 7" series, which includes the latest and last week leaks, along with the following batches:

UCL/Raytheon — An alleged CIA contractor, which analysed in-the-wild advanced malware and hacking tools and submitted at least 5 reports to the agency for help it develop its own malware.

Have you considered the possibility that someone could be watching you through your webcam? Or Listening to all your conversations through your laptop’s microphone?

Even a bit of thought about this probability could make you feel incredibly creepy.

But most people think that they have a solution to these major issues i.e. simply covering their laptop’s webcam and microphone with tape, just like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and FBI Director James Comey.

But it's 2016, and a piece of tape won't help you, as a new experiment has proved that how easily hackers can turn your headphones into a microphone to spy on all your conversations in the background without your knowledge.

A group of Israeli security researchers at Ben Gurion University have created a proof-of-concept code (malware) that converts typical headphones into microphones and then use them to record all your conversations in the room just like a fully-featured spying device.

Speake(a)r Malware Weaponizes Headphones and Speakers

Using headphones as microphones is a decade-old technique. There are many videos available on YouTube, which show that earbuds can function as microphones in a pinch.

But what the researchers managed to do is switching an output channel of the audio card on your laptop — running either Windows or Mac OS — to an input signal and then recording the sound without any dedicated microphone channel from as far as 20 feet away.

Dubbed "Speake(a)r," the malicious code (malware) is disturbingly able to hijack a computer to record audio even when its microphone is disabled or completely disconnected from the computer.

"People don’t think about this privacy vulnerability," says lead researcher Mordechai Guri told Wired. "Even if you remove your computer’s microphone, if you use headphones you can be recorded."

Speake(a)r actually utilizes the existing headphones to capture vibrations in the air, converts them to electromagnetic signals, alters the internal functions of audio jacks, and then flips input jacks (used by microphones) to output jacks (used for speakers and headphones).

This allows a hacker to record audio, though at a lower quality, from computers with disabled or no microphone or from computers of a paranoid user, who has intentionally removed any existing audio components.

But What made this Hack Possible?

Thanks to a little-known feature of Realtek audio codec chips that actually "retask" the computer's output channel as an input channel silently.

This makes it possible for the researchers' malware to record audio even when the earbuds is connected into an output-only jack and do not even have a microphone channel on their plug.

What's even worse? Since RealTek chips are being used on the majority of systems these days, the Speake(a)r attack works on practically any computer, running Windows or MacOS, and most laptops, as well, leaving most computers vulnerable to such attacks.

"This is the real vulnerability," said Guri. "It’s what makes almost every computer today vulnerable to this type of attack."

The feature of RealTek audio codec chips is truly dangerous, as it can not be easily fixed. The only way to deal with this issue is to redesign and replace the chip in current as well as future computers, which is impractical.

Security researchers also published a YouTube video which shows the Speake(a)r eavesdropping attack in work.

For more detailed and technical explanation of the Speake(a)r attack, you can head on to the research paper [PDF] titled "Speake(a)r: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit."

Apple Mac Computers are considered to be much safer than Windows at keeping viruses and malware out of its environment, but that’s simply not true anymore.

It's not because Mac OS X is getting worse every day, but because hackers are getting smart and sophisticated these days.

The bad news for Mac users is that malware targeting webcams and microphones has now come up for Mac laptops as well.

Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA staffer who heads up research at security intelligence firm Synack, discovered a way for Mac malware to tap into your live feeds from Mac's built-in webcam and microphone to locally record you even without detection.

Wardle also released a free tool called RansomWhere? earlier this year that has generic detection capabilities for Mac OS X ransomware variants.

Wardle is scheduled to present his new findings at the Virus Bulletin conference in Denver later today, along with his research demonstrating how malware could easily piggyback on your legitimate webcam sessions to keep its spying activity hidden.

Yes, piggybacking legitimate webcam sessions initiated by you.

Here's How Mac Malware Works:

Since Mac's firmware-level protection lights the green LED for any unauthorized access to user's webcam, Wardle believes that attackers can use a malicious app that quietly monitors the system for any outgoing feed of an existing webcam session – like a Skype or FaceTime call – where the light indicator would already be ON.

The malware then piggybacks the victim's webcam or microphone to secretly record both audio and video session, without any visible indication of this malicious activity and any fear of detection.

In his paper presentation, titled 'Getting Duped: Piggybacking on Webcam Streams for Surreptitious Recordings,' Wardle outlines the threat along with countermeasures to detect "secondary" processes that try to access an existing video session on OS X.

How to Prevent Your WebCam and Mic from Being Hacked

Wardle has developed and released a free tool, dubbed OverSight, which not only monitors webcam and microphone activities but also alerts you when a secondary process accesses your webcam, asking whether you want to allow or block access.

A hidden microphone was found in Ecuador's embassy in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is sheltering from extradition to Sweden, The Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino claimed.

The microphone was found in the office of the ambassador Ana Alban and was discovered last month during his visit to Britain to discuss issues surrounding Julian Assange.

At a press conference in Quito, the foreign minister of Ecuador, held up a photo of a "spy microphone" that was found on June 14 inside a small white box that was placed in an electrical outlet behind a bookshelf.

However, the purpose of the bug, according to Patino, was not to track the WikiLeaks founder directly, but rather listen to the conversations of ambassador Ana Alban.

He told reporters: "We have reason to believe that the bugging was carried out by The Surveillance Group Limited, one of the largest private investigation and covert surveillance companies in the United Kingdom."

"We found something, but we don't know what it is, and we are sending it to someone who can respond to what it is about... I don't know how long it has been there,"

The foreign minister said Ecuador was going to ask the British government to help investigate the alleged incident, adding that the system worked with a Sim card and could be activated by a call from any cellular or fixed-line phone.

He said some had a text facility that sent alerts when people were speaking in the room so that users could call to listen in.

The Surveillance Group website states, "The Surveillance Group do not and have never been engaged in any activities of this nature. We have not been contacted by any member of the Ecuadorean government and our first notification about this incident was via the press this morning. This is a wholly untrue assertion."

Wikileaks are attempting to assist Snowden, who is believed to be stranded at a Moscow airport and is seeking asylum in over 20 countries including Ecuador. Snowden is wanted by the United States on charges of espionage for revealing a massive phone and Internet surveillance programme.

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